Monitoring Parliamentarians: Promises, Barriers and Dilemmas of Parliamentary Openness

Monitoring parliamentarians: promises, barriers and dilemmas of parliamentary openness

EGPA Study Group on Information and communications technologies in Public Administration

Conference 10-12 September 2014, Speyer, Germany

Arthur Edwards*

Dennis de Kool

Charlotte van Ooijen [email protected]

*Corresponding author

Erasmus University Rotterdam

Department of Public Administration

P.O. Box 1738

Room T17-34

3000 DR Rotterdam

Abstract: This paper focuses on the monitoring of individual parliamentarians and parliamentary groups by independent Parliamentary Monitoring Organizations. Five parliamentary monitoring websites (PMWs) in France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom are compared regarding their usefulness and democratic value for the monitorial citizen. Our findings indicate that PMWs have democratic value. They have positive effects on accountability and expose weaknesses in the functioning of parliamentarians with regard to integrity and conflicts of interest. However, there are some important barriers regarding usefulness. The existing scholarly knowledge about how voters gather and process information should be better taken into account in the approach to information provision on PMWs. The drive to monitor parliamentarians can have certain perverse effects on the behaviour of parliamentarians. The value of parliamentary monitoring for the quality of parliamentary work deserves further research.

DRAFT: please, do not cite without permission of the corresponding author. Comments are welcome!

1.Introduction

‘Parliamentary openness’ has become a central concern within the international parliamentary community. The principle involves ‘that information produced by or for the parliament belongs to the citizen’.1 Parliamentary openness refers to a wide range of efforts in providing information on parliamentary processes. It involves the active dissemination of information by parliaments themselves as well as the efforts of civil society actors in accessing, processing and publishing parliamentary data. This paper focuses on parliamentary monitoring, i.e. the monitoring of individual parliamentarians and parliamentary groups by independent information intermediaries, including ‘Parliamentary Monitoring Organizations’ (Mandelbaum 2011). The objects of parliamentary monitoring include voting behaviour and other parliamentary activities, expenses and non-parliamentary incomes, unethical conduct and potential conflicts of interest. As a matter of course, information and communication technologies (ICTs) greatly facilitate parliamentary monitoring, because of their capabilities to store, organize and aggregate information from various sources, and to create platforms for interaction between citizens and politicians. Parliamentary openness and parliamentary monitoring can been related to several democratic aims. The basic expectation is that they further the public knowledge about the functioning of parliaments and their individual members. This could serve other democratic aims, including holding parliamentarians accountable, empowering civil society and encouraging citizen participation. We encompass those aims under the heading of ‘democratic value’ (Hilbert, 2009; Moss and Coleman 2014), which we define as the added value of parliamentary monitoring for democratic practices within a configuration of interacting (representative and more direct) forms of democracy. This paper aims at a critical exploration of the promises, barriers and dilemmas of parliamentary monitoring. We investigate how PMOs select and present information on Parliamentary Monitoring Websites (PMWs), which design choices are thereby made and how these choices affect the democratic value of PMWs. The central question is: What is the democratic value of Parliamentary Monitoring Websites? Our research is structured around three sub questions:

(1) How can the democratic value of parliamentary monitoring be conceptualized? (2) Which conditions regarding usefulness have to be fulfilled for the realization of this democratic potential? (3) How are usefulness and democratic value realized on PMWs?

The first two questions are dealt with in the theoretical framework. We start by discussing key conditions with regard to the usefulness of parliamentary information for citizens. Usefulness is a necessary condition for the realization of the democratic value of parliamentary data.

1 Declaration on Parliamentary Openness (2012). Opening Parliament.org

Democratic value is conceptualized within the framework of models of democracy. Representative democracy is the primary domain within which this democratic potential is discussed. Pluralist democracy, deliberative democracy and direct democracy are taken into consideration as well. The notion of ‘monitorial citizenship’ will be used as a lens to investigate how mechanisms from these models of democracy interact with parliamentary monitoring. For instance, within representative democracy the usage of information provided on PMWs assumes vigilant ‘monitorial voters’. How are monitorial voters facilitated by PMWs? The democratic value of PMWs in representative democracy can also be assessed in terms of the quality and integrity of parliamentary work. This dimension of democratic value will be discussed within the framework of accountability, but not investigated in further detail.

The research is based on case studies of five PMWs in France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. These countries represent a variety of political systems which serves our exploratory aims. In section 2, we present our theoretical framework and research design. In section 3, we provide a description of the selected websites. We present a comparative analysis of the websites in section 4, followed by an assessment of their democratic value in section 5. In section 6, we formulate our conclusions.

2. Theoretical framework and research design

Figure 1: conceptual model

usage by citizens

general conditions for democratic value of parliamentary data: usefulness of parliamentary data representative, pluralist, deliberative, direct democracy

information usage by information and preference intermediaries intermediaries

Figure 1 presents our conceptual model. For parliamentary data to actually be used by citizens, certain conditions with regard to the usefulness of the data have to be fulfilled. Information

intermediaries (PMOs as well as journalists) have a crucial role in this. With regard to democratic value, the role of intermediaries has to be highlighted as well, not only in processing and presenting the data as such, but also in interpreting the data in relation to political preferences. The democratic value of parliamentary monitoring depends not only on the work of journalists but also advocacy groups and political parties (‘preference intermediaries’; Edwards, 2006a).

2.1 Usefulness

The drive to increase openness and transparency by means of information access and dissemination entails various problems and tensions. Usefulness is one of the primary principles that should guide decisions about how parliamentary information has to be made available (Dawes, 2010). The principle involves that the disseminated information is relevant to its intended users and is made available in such a way that it can be used in an easy manner. Janssen et al (2012) discuss a number of ‘myths’ concerning ‘open data’ and ‘open government’. ‘Myths’ are ‘seductive tales’, which tend to idealize a specific endeavour by looking at the advantages without sufficient attention to possible drawbacks (Bekkers and Homburg, 2007). Meijer (2009) argues that computer-mediated transparency has some characteristics that can actually threaten trust. Computer-mediated transparency tends to be decontextualized, highly selective and biased toward quantitative information and non- interactive. Grimmelikhuijsen (2012) established that the direct effect of transparency on trust is very limited. On the basis of their discussion of myths, Janssen et al. (2012: 264-266) formulated some recommendations. An important one is to get insight into the users’ perspective and information needs. Dawes (2002) specified a number of ‘usefulness proposals’. The following three design principles for PMWs are partly based upon their work.

1. Appropriate consideration should be given to the objects of monitoring, the information about these objects and the kind of data. At least three problems can be noted. Firstly, information provision is always selective. The choices made with regard to the parliamentary activities to be monitored can affect the voters’ assessment of their representatives. Second, the publicizing of some information and data can result in a misleading or biased picture of the situation. For instance, without contextual information about the political position of the party (in the opposition or in the government), and compromises made in case of coalition governments, simple performance ratings of political groups according to their enactment of election promises can be misleading. Third, publication of certain data can lead to misuse and other undesirable side effects. For instance, rankings of parliamentarians according to their interventions in debates can result in strategic behaviour.

2. The publicizing of parliamentary data needs to be accompanied by an infrastructure which is able to handle the data in an easy-to-use way. An example is a concise grouping of data in a ‘profile’ of each representative. Such an infrastructure should lower the barriers for users to find the right information, to analyse it and to draw conclusions. Specifically, the provision of meta-data for searching, analysing and interpreting data is essential. The composition of these metadata (e.g., a categorization of data in policy areas) should be carefully considered. 3. The information needs and capabilities of users have to be taken into account. This design principle should be linked to the extensive literature about how voters gather and process political information. Sniderman et al. (1990) argued that both well- educated and low educated voters can be seen as rational decision makers, in the sense that the well-educated are ‘optimizers’ and the less educated are ‘satisficers’.The accompanying infrastructure should provide appropriate supporting facilities in terms of guidance, visualization, annotation, and features for specific target groups. Mechanisms for user feedback are also important.

These design principles underline the importance of efforts of PMOs in gathering, processing and presenting parliamentary data with a view to usefulness. The principles can be regarded as complementary perspectives on usefulness, because they address the ‘what’ and ‘how’ aspects of information provision from different angles. The principles suggest that a ‘service-hatch’ approach to parliamentary monitoring, by which only raw data is provided, is inappropriate. In an ideal-typical approach, the opposite of the service-hatch position is custom made information, tailored to the political information needs of every individual citizen on a one-to- one basis. In theory, again, there are two approaches to personalization: (1) personalization manufactured by the information system which may become more within reach according as the system ‘knows’ more about the characteristics and preferences of individual persons, and (2) personalization on the basis of the notion of ‘do-it-yourself-citizenship’ (Dahlberg, 2010). Without dismissing possibilities for personalization, it seems more practical to look at information needs of different user categories rather than individual users. In this context, another consideration is relevant. The information provided by a PMW does not need to be the appropriate end product for all user categories. A further selection and processing of information by journalists will be required for reaching those citizens, who perform their monitorial role at a greater distance from the political system. The division of labour between PMOs and the media deserves further attention.

2.2 Democratic value

We link our conceptualization of the democratic value of parliamentary monitoring with the notion of monitorial citizenship. This concept has been introduced by Schudson (1998) and has obtained a foothold in the literature on democracy and citizenship, particularly in the context of the information society. Monitorial citizens scan their informational environment. ‘Reading the headlines’ will suffice most of the time. When they consider key interests at stake, they may decide to intervene and gain access to further information. Representative democracy is the primary domain in which monitorial citizenship is exercised. However, other democratic mechanisms are also relevant. Figure 2 presents an overall picture of the ‘models of democracy’ through which monitorial citizenship can be exercised. We consider these models not as rivalling conceptions of democracy, but as dimensions of a democratic political system, which (depending on the institutional arrangements in a country) coexist and interact in specific ways (Lonford and Patten, 2007).

Figure 2: Models of democracy for exercising monitorial citizenship

(‘Accelerated’) pluralist democracy

Direct democracy

moni- (corrective referendum) torial Representative democracy citizen - ship Deliberative

democracy (forum)

Deliberative democracy (agenda-

setting)

Selecting elected representatives, monitoring their activities and holding them accountable in the next election are the traditional tasks of voters in a representative democracy. The concept

of monitorial citizenship suggests that voters discharge their monitorial role ‘by keeping an eye on the scene’ (Schudson, 1998:311). They rely on trusted sources via the news media, peers and other sources. During elections, voters use various economizing strategies and shortcuts for gathering, analysing and evaluating political information about candidates and parties (Downs, 1957; Ferejohn & Kuklinski, 1990). Ideology is one example, past performance is another, because voters can base their assessments on their own experience of their circumstances of life during a candidate’s incumbency. ‘Political signalling’, i.e. taking cues from ‘insiders’ (e.g., interest groups), is also important. Performance data and voting records can be used by candidates and parties in election campaigns in their attacks on opponents. The use of shortcuts can be supplemented by consulting voting records, e.g. on specific key issue domains. Lastly, ‘retrospective voter advice applications’ based on voting records can be useful for voters. One of the PMOs in the Dutch case provided such a device in 2006. The effects of parliamentary monitoring on parliamentary work are difficult to assess. In line with its aims, the main desired effect is that it would make MPs feel accountable, which would in turn encourage openness to citizen input, procedural fairness and responsiveness, and would counter unethical conduct. From research on performance measurement in the public sector, however, we know that transparency can have perverse effects and lead to strategic behaviour (De Bruijn, 2007

The exercise of monitorial citizenship is triggered and facilitated further by mechanisms and intermediaries within the pluralist, deliberative and direct models of democracy. Pluralism allows for different interpretations, also in terms of views of parliament (Taylor & Burt, 1999). In a monitorial reading of the pluralist model of democracy, citizens are called to action by ad hoc groups of volunteers or by a more or less established special interest group which foresees a crisis like situation, and believes that some action must be taken in response. We adopt this idea from Hurwitz (1999), who emphasizes the initiating role of volunteers: ‘The organizations for such actions are typically ephemeral and initially rely on word of mouth to publicize their cause.’ (p.660). The proliferation of single issue groups and the rapid mobilization made possible by the internet have been coined by Bimber (1998) as ‘accelerated pluralism’. In the last decade we witness the use of social media by citizens who mobilize their own social networks in ‘connective action’, thereby producing a snowball effect with political impact (Bennett & Segerberg, 2012). Above, we referred to the ‘signalling’ function of information providers. Special interest groups can play an important role in this by aggregating and evaluating performance data and votes. Since decades, interest groups in the United States issue congressional voting ‘report cards’ to tell voters how their lawmakers are doing. Interest groups use them to choose which Members of Congress to back financially, to mobilize grass- roots supporters and to lobby Congress directly. Members of Congress (MCs) can be captured

by threats that a specific vote will be included as a ‘key vote’ in the scorecards.2 The American PMO VoteSmart includes interest group ratings in their overviews of performance evaluations. On the website it is pointed out that ratings done by interest groups are biased and that some groups even select votes that tend to favour members of one political party over another. However, they can be very useful ‘especially when ratings by groups on all sides of an issue are compared.’ 3

The deliberative model is also pertinent for monitorial citizenship. Here we draw upon Zaller’s notion of the ‘Burglar Alarm’ as an alternative standard for the quality of news for the ‘Full News’ standard (Zaller, 2003). The Burglar Alarm standard ‘would motivate news that would catch the attention of the Monitorial Citizen’, thereby facilitating his opinion formation (p.122). Partly drawing upon Arnold’s research on the role of the press in holding MCs to account (Arnold, 2004), Zaller identifies four kinds of ‘stories’ which would call for coverage under the Burglar Alarm standard: (1) recorded votes on controversial elements of the president’s agenda, (2) efforts by individual MCs to prevent a major federal program or activity in their district from shutting down, (3) credible allegations that a MC broke the law or violated ethics standards and (4) cases in which a MC voted against the apparent interests of his constituents (p. 125). Except the violations of law and ethics standards, three of these ‘stories’ can be included in voting records. We consider the Burglar Alarm standard as applying to the agenda- setting role of deliberative democracy. The objection that monitorial citizenship, and especially the Burglar Alarm standard, involves the danger of stimulating a ‘democracy of rejection’, in contrast to a ‘democracy of proposition’ (Moss and Coleman, 2014, following Rosanvallon, 2008), has to be conceded. On the other hand, the expenses scandal in the British House of Commons in 2009 seems to allow for a more optimistic assessment. According to the Speaker of the House of Commons, addressing the Hansard Society as chairman of the Speaker’s Commission on Digital Democracy on 27 November 2013, the scandal ‘had rocked parliament to its very foundations’, but has also staged ‘an unexpected recovery’. 4 However, we agree with Moss and Coleman (2014:418) when they suggest that the forms of monitorial citizenship facilitated by open government should be supplemented by deliberative practices ‘that provide an opportunity to reflect on the nuances and complexities of policy and which can make constructive links with policy formation and decision-making’. The agenda-setting function of pluralist and deliberative democracy has therefore to be supplemented by deliberative arrangements where citizens can trigger appeal. The importance of forums for monitorial

2 http://public.cq.com/docs/weeklyreport/weeklyreport-000004207216.html?src=db 3 http://votesmart.org/ 4 http://www.parliament.uk/business/commons/the-speaker/speeches/speeches/designing-a-parliament-for-the- 21st-century/

citizenship is also underlined by Van den Hoven (2005). Where can these forums be localized? The media can fulfil these roles but their performance may not be sufficient. For instance, Arnold (2004) established that MCs’ explanations for their votes were seldom or only intermittently covered. Public hearings and citizen juries are candidates, but (again) their political resonance depends on the media. Citizen juries face a range of problems with regard to media coverage (Smith, 2009: 102-105). Lastly, in countries where such an institution exists, the ‘corrective referendum’ in which the citizens can veto legislation that has been passed in parliament, is a formal device in the hands of monitorial citizens.

2.3 Research design

The research is based on case studies of websites in France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. These countries represent different ‘state traditions’ (the Napoleonic, Germanic and Anglo-Saxon state traditions; Loughlin, 1994), electoral systems and relationships between parliament and government. Five websites were selected. NosDéputés (France), Parliament Watch (Germany) and TheyWorkForYou (UK) we consider the most important PMWs in these countries. The two Dutch PMWs (‘No Words’ and Politix) do not exist anymore but they represent interesting ‘extreme cases’ regarding their design. All websites differ in their objects of monitoring. Some websites also focus on expenses and non-parliamentary incomes, and potential conflicts of interest. This variety allows for a broad approach in terms of democratic value. Our data are derived from various sources. We conducted an analysis of web content. We derived data from scientific articles and reports. In some cases user surveys were also available. As for ‘No Words’ an extensive data set was available from earlier research (Edwards, 2006). An additional interview was conducted with one of the initiators of Politix.

3. Case description

3.1 Netherlands

In the Netherlands, election campaigns have a strong prospective orientation. The political parties formulate their election programmes; the election leaders express their most salient promises. Newspapers and civil society organizations publish comparisons between the election programmes or provide voting advice systems on the Internet that are based on election programs. The Dutch StemWijzer is widely known (Garzia & Marschall, 2014). There is no tradition of comparing the past performance of political parties in parliament, let alone of individual representatives. Institutional characteristics of the Dutch political system, among which the electoral system of proportional representation, can account for this (Edwards, 2006). A few attempts have been made to introduce systems of parliamentary monitoring. An

early attempt was the project ‘No Words’ (GeenWoorden) during the election campaign in 2002. The website provided assessments of the enactment of election promises by the political parties represented in the Second Chamber (House of Representatives) of Dutch Parliament. In 2006, the website Politix.nl was launched, which provided data about the voting behaviour of the party groups in the Second Chamber.

3.1.1 GeenWoorden.nl

- Background

Six weeks before the Dutch parliamentary elections in 2002, the website GeenWoorden.nl (‘No Words’) was launched: an initiative of the Institute for Public and Politics (IPP) and the Catholic Broadcasting Association (KRO). The project had two aims. The first aim was to provide the voters with information about the past performance of the political parties in parliament; the second aim was to promote a practice of holding politicians accountable for their deeds in office. The KRO broadcasted a number of programs on radio and TV that took up the idea of the project. For instance, on a few TV programs a politician (not a parliamentarian but a member of government) was invited to undergo a ‘job evaluation interview’ with experts from the field (Edwards, 2006).

- Objects, infrastructure

Within six selected policy areas (multi-cultural society, education, transportation, public health, moral issues, and democracy), two specific themes were chosen. The project staff made summaries of the 1998 election programs on the selected themes. The parliamentary parties were asked to indicate what they had done to fulfil their promises (in 200 words on each theme). Experts (staff from interest groups, academic experts and ‘experience experts’ from the field) were asked to evaluate the truthfulness and effectiveness of the reported deeds. The summaries, reported deeds and evaluations were placed side by side on the web pages, searchable by political party and theme. A discussion forum was also provided

This website exhibited several design choices with regard to the selection of areas and themes, the gathering of data and the ways of aggregating and assessing these data. With regard to the selection of areas, ‘moral issues’ and ‘democracy’ were priority areas for the KRO and IPP respectively. The other areas were selected because of their saliency in the public discussion.5 An important feature of this project was that the gathering and selection of the performance data was left to the politicians themselves. The project managers considered that parties

5 However, combating crime and ensuring safety, the policy area that the Dutch voters regarded as the most important priority at that time, was not included (Van Praag, 2003).

should be given the opportunity ‘to profile themselves’. Obviously, this resulted in all kinds of biases. For instance, on issues of the multi-cultural society, which enjoyed an extremely high saliency at that time6, several political parties reported deeds that were more restrictive toward immigrants than their 1998 election promises. These discrepancies were noticed by the academic expert, and explained by him to be the result of changes in the public opinion. The data were assessed in panels which provided qualitative evaluations from different angles. Journalists urged for easy to digest ‘report marks’. The project manager tentatively composed these figures on the basis of the panel evaluations and published them in the KRO’s magazine. Most report marks found themselves within a narrow bandwidth. The average report mark for all parties on all themes came to 5.4 (in the usual 1-10 scale).

-Usage, impact

In the six weeks of its existence, the website counted 60,000 visitors (about 0.5 percent of the adult population). In her evaluation, the project manager concluded that the website was probably too cumbersome for the users (‘too many words’). The television broadcasts attracted on average 750,000 viewers, i.e. a market share of about 13%, which was considered as rather high. The vast majority of people visited the website to acquire information, not to conduct discussions on the forum. Nevertheless, on the issue of the multicultural society a lively discussion ensued. Politicians were in these discussions almost absent (Edwards, 2006). In her evaluation of the project, the project manager indicated that many reported deeds would require further research on their actual effects on social problems. However, the information on the website was barely used by the journalists for research or comment.

3.1.2 Politix.nl

- Background

Politix.nl, launched in 2004 by two individual citizens, was the first website in the Netherlands that provided information about the voting behaviour of national parliamentarians. The initiators had two aims (source: interview). Firstly, they aimed to enhance the quality of the public debate in the Netherlands about politics. Information about the voting behaviour of the political groups in the Dutch House of Representatives was considered to be a necessary precondition to conduct this debate on a higher level. In view of this aim, the website’s primary target group were the journalists. Secondly, the website was meant as a means to facilitate public accountability regarding parliamentary action. Being a private initiative of two citizens, an update of the website was supported in 2008 by a foundation and by a new website (watstemtmijnraad.nl) that provided the same information on votes in local councils of a

6 The election campaign in 2002 witnessed the rise of Pim Fortuyn.

number of Dutch municipalities, and was financially supported by the Ministry of the Interior. The website was terminated in 2011.

- Objects, infrastructure

The website provided data on votes on bills and amendments. Each bill and amendment was presented by a summary with a link to the original document. Overviews of the votes were provided per week, per theme (within a menu of twelve themes) and per party. In line with the initiators’ main objective, the website also offered a facility for users to conduct a discussion about proposals, to add arguments, to vote or even to formulate an alternative proposal.

- Usage, impact

The website reached an average number of 800-1000 visitors a day. The website was frequently visited by members of the Second Chamber, and also by local politicians, for whom this website provided up-to-date information about decision-making in the national parliament (source: interview). In a few cases, journalists and bloggers used the data on the website und published their results (source: interview). The use by ordinary citizens seems to have been rather modest.

3.2 Germany: Abgeordnetenwatch.de

- Background

The website abgeordnetenwatch.de (‘Parliament Watch’) was set up in 2004 by political activists in the city state of Hamburg when a more personalized proportional electoral system was adopted for the regional parliament. According to Pautz (2010), the establishment of the website was stimulated by the activists’ concern that if the system was carried through, ‘voters would find it difficult to actually know what the candidates stood for, to communicate with them, and to evaluate their voting behaviour in the legislature’ (Pautz, 2010, p. 158). The website was set up to facilitate citizens to put questions directly to politicians standing for election to the parliament. After 2004 the website’s reach was expanded to other German States and 60 municipal councils. Parliament Watch is financed by donations of its users and sponsors. In addition, candidates may upgrade their profiles to include certain features in return for a once-off payment up to € 200. Basic details such as name, party, constituency and professional qualification, are available as standard and are free of charge. An oversight of all income and expenses can be downloaded from the website.

- Objects, infrastructure

The website presents a profile of all individual members of the Bundestag. This profile provides information about:

- Person and function of the parliamentarian. Data include date of birth, place of residence, professional qualification, electoral district, place on party list, election result, functions held as a parliamentarian. - Parliamentary activity: voting behaviour on selected issues (in chronological order, with background information), membership of committees, and in a number of cases also speeches (with video). - Additional jobs: paid jobs and functions in associations, interest groups and foundations.

The main function of the website is to enable citizens to put public questions to their representatives. All questions and answers are permanently archived, categorized in twenty policy areas. For each representative, the website indicates the number of questions asked and answered. Each year an ‘answer check’ is published in a ranking order. Parliament Watch aims to serve a verification function, since ‘public statements must match the voting behaviour.’ 7 However, the actual verification would have to be accomplished by the users (or by journalists and interest groups). This comes down to comparing two data sets. This juxtaposition is not easy, because the votes are not categorized by themes.

-Usage, impact

The number of visitors in 2012 and 2013 was about 2.5 million per year. There is a very strong overrepresentation of males (about 80%) and a rather strong overrepresentation of high educated people among the users (about 40%, against 27% among the population8) (Albrecht & Trénel, 2010). Since the start of Parliament Watch, more than 160,000 questions were asked, out of which more than 130,000 have been answered so far. The percentage of answered questions is about 80% since 2009. Parliament Watch is very active in campaigning for transparency in party financing and in disclosing perquisites.9 In 2013, it initiated a petition on transparency of perquisites. The website has several partnerships with prominent national online media (spiegel.de, t-online.de, sueddeutsche.de) and approximately 50 regional newspaper portals. According to the Annual Report 2013, the website has become an important research source for journalists. For example, research concerning the additional income of the parliamentarian and party leader of the Christian Democrat Michael Fuchs (published in January 2013 in the German weekly Stern) got a lot of attention in the media (see footnote 9).

7https://www.abgeordnetenwatch.de/sites/abgeordnetenwatch.de/files/aw_annual_report2013_english_web.pdf 8 http://www.bpb.de/nachschlagen/zahlen-und-fakten/soziale-situation-in-deutschland/61656/bildungsstand 9 See for instance: https://www.abgeordnetenwatch.de/blog/nebeneinkunfte-abgeordnete-kassieren-mehrere- millionen-euro-aus-unbekannten-quellen

3.3 United Kingdom: TheyWorkForYou.com

- Background

TheyWorkForYou.com, launched in 2004, provides information on the members of all parliaments and assemblies in the United Kingdom. In 2006 the website became a MySociety project. MySociety’s work is funded by a variety of means: grants from charitable foundations, donations from private individuals, and commercial income from its trading entities. The main goal of the website is to provide unbiased, non-partisan information about what members of parliament have been doing, saying and voting on. Specifically, the website aims to make it easy for people to keep tabs on their representatives. This would enable them to pass a fair judgment of MPs, thereby making MPs feel accountable (Escher, 2011: 8-9).

- Objects, infrastructure

For every Member of Parliament, the information available includes records of voting behaviour, recent appearances, expenses as well as a register of interests, such as remunerated employment, office and profession, and sponsorships. A feature ‘Numerology’ specifies (among other things) the number of debates in which the MP has spoken in the last year, the number of written questions asked in the last year, and participation in votes. In each case it also indicated whether the number is above or below average amongst MPs. It is indicated that these number do not measure quality and that ‘representatives may do other things not currently covered by this site’. Voting records are aggregated within 10 issue domains, including a miscellaneous category. Within each domain a number of themes (policies) are distinguished. Votes are aggregated within these policies according to the scale very strongly for/against, strongly for/against and moderately for/against (sometimes also ‘a mixture of for and against’). The policies and aggregations are made by The Public Whip, a website that focuses on MPs votes and voting patterns. A Policy is defined as ‘a set of votes that represent a view on a particular issue.’ An example is the policy European Union-For 10 Users can participate in the maintenance of policies, edit them (for instance, when new votes have appeared) or propose a new policy.

The MP’s votes count towards a weighted average where the most important votes get 50 points, less important votes get 10 points, and less important votes for which the MP was absent get 2 points. In important votes the MP gets awarded the full 50 points for voting the same as the policy, no points for voting against the policy, and 25 points for not voting. In less important votes, the MP gets 10 points for voting with the policy, no points for voting against, and 1 (out of 2) if absent. The voting behaviour of

10 http://www.publicwhip.org.uk/faq.php#policies

Labour MP Diane Abbott on the European Union is evaluated as ‘voted moderately for more EU integration’ by scoring 68.4 for the policy European Union-For 11.

- Usage, impact

TheyWorkForYou receives on average between 200,000 and 300,000 visits every month (Escher, 2011). Noticeable usage peaks occurred in May 2009 during the height of the MP expenses scandal when many people visited the site to see the expenses records of their MPs (450,000 visits within one month). About half of the overall audience are regular users that come to the site repeatedly. By far the most popular content is the section with information about the House of Commons, and in particular the section with the profiles of individual MPs. In terms of demographics there is a strong male bias and a very strong overrepresentation of people with a higher education degree (64% as compared with 27% of Internet users). Escher indicates that this bias in education is much stronger than the one generally reported for those who are politically active. People above the age of 54 tend to be over-represented, while those younger than 45 are under-represented in comparison to the Internet population. The share of retired people is even twice as high as the Internet average (Escher, 2011). User satisfaction is, first of all, related to whether use of the site was successful, which is defined as ‘the user having been able to find the information that was reached for’ (Escher, 2011: 28). On the teaser question used for recruiting respondents ‘Did you find what you were looking for?’, 59% answered in the affirmative. In the survey sample this was substantially more (80%). Escher did not probe further into the reasons of not finding the desired information. Almost all respondents answered that the site provides information in an unbiased and non-partisan way. The site improved the knowledge of 89% of the users about their representative. For 54% this improved knowledge has ‘improved my opinion about my representative’.12

In 2006, The Times argued that the statistics about the number of times an MP has spoken in debates would result in an increase of ‘unnecessary interventions’. The reporting of these statistics was subsequently changed to indicate rough trends (above/below average: see above) (Escher, 2011: 44). This issue has several times been raised again. According to the Speaker’s Commission on Digital Democracy set up in 2013, ‘some features of PMOs’ activities may provide perverse incentives for MPs to behave in particular ways that are driven by statistics

11 The Public Whip (23 July 2014): http://www.publicwhip.org.uk/mp.php?mpid=40289&dmp=1065 12 If we interpret this statement as ‘my opinion about my representative has become more positive’, this would be an interesting result, in view of the discussion about the effects of transparency on trust (Grimmelikhuijsen, 2012). However, the question also allows for an interpretation in terms of ‘quality of judgment’.

and the appearance of activity rather than the needs of people they were elected to represent’.13

3.3 France

-Background

On the website NosDéputés.fr (our deputies) the French citizen organization ‘Regards Citoyens’, meaning ‘the citizens’ gaze’, monitors several activities of the members of the national assembly.14 The website carries the subtitle Observatoire citoyen de l’activité parlementaire, meaning ‘Citizen observatory of parliamentary activity’. The aims of NosDéputés.fr are stated on its homepage: ‘providing citizens with new means to understand and analyse the work of their representatives’ as well as providing a ‘platform mediating between citizens and deputies’.15 Regards Citoyens has been promoting public open date in France since 2009 (Ooghe, 2011a). They have created several web projects using open data and open source software, among which this PMW (Ooghe,2011b). The Regards Citoyens collective consists of eleven citizens. They do their work on a voluntary basis. To finance their endeavour, Regards Citoyens partially relies on support from the regional government of Île de France for participating in a research project led by the SciencesPo University, and partially on gifts. The French parliament consists of two chambers: the National Assembly (l’Assemblée nationale) and the Senate (le Sénat). All 557 members of the national assembly are elected directly by the French people for a period of five years. For the purpose of the elections, France and the overseas territories are divided into constituencies. Within each constituency one candidate can be chosen after a maximum of two rounds of elections (Assemblée nationale, 2012).16 The National Assembly’s power to control the government has increased considerably as a result of a change of the constitution in 2008 (Ibid.).

- Objects, infrastructure

The information about the deputies’ activities is copied from the National Assembly’s website and from the Journal official, which lists all official legal and regulatory documents. The

13 http://www.parliament.uk/business/commons/the-speaker/speakers-commission-on-digital-democracy/digital- scrutiny/background-to-digital-scrutiny/ 14 Regards Citoyens has developed another website to monitor the activities of the French senators: NosSénateurs.fr (our senators). This website has the same structure and a similar purpose as the NosDéputés website. For purposes of clarity, we only discuss the NosDéputés initiative. 15 Translation of following original text: ‘[…] ce site essaie de donner aux citoyens de nouveaux outils pour comprendre et analyser le travail de leurs représentants. […] comme une plateforme de médiation entre citoyens et députés […]’ 16 In the second round age can be the deciding factor for a candidate to be elected: ‘Article L 126 of the Electoral code states that "in case of an equal number of votes cast between the two candidates, the elder candidate is elected".’ (Assemblée nationale, 2012).

homepage shows a picture of the ‘deputy of the day’ along with a link to his or her profile page. The next item is a search engine, in which postal code, municipality or a deputy’s name can be entered in order to find one’s own deputy. Furthermore, there’s a frame showing key words which have recently been discussed in the National Assembly, which provide access to the documents in which they appear. The homepage also displays a graph which summarizes parliamentary activity over the last twelve months. The last item is a frame featuring the most recent comments by users.

On the website, each deputy has a profile page. This profile page presents the following information:

- Person and function of the parliamentarian. Data include professional qualification, electoral district, party affiliation, parliamentary responsibilities and links to their pages on Wikipedia and the National Assembly’s website.

- Parliamentary activity:

1. Quantitative information

Graph displaying the deputy’s participation over the last twelve months and icons indicating: the number of active weeks, presence in commission reunions, interventions in commission meetings, long interventions in parliament (more than 20 words), signed amendments, signed and adopted bills, written and oral questions, written reports (in total ten items).

2. Qualitative information

Listing of the latest bills, reports, questions to the government and interventions the deputy is involved in with links to the actual texts, including the reactions and responses by other deputies and members of the government

- Users’ comments: the most recent comments by registered users on files linked to the deputy, such as bills, questions to the government or interventions in parliament.

As for the quantitative information, a separate page features a synthesis of the parliamentary activity in the last twelve months, consisting of three parts. First, there’s a table listing all deputies and parliamentary activities. Next to the ten activities which are also listed on each deputy’s profile page, two more activities are counted: short interventions in parliament (of less than 20 words) and adopted amendments. It is not clear why these two categories are lacking on the individual profile pages. A second table displays the average deputy activity per political group in each category over the last twelve months. The third element of the synthesis is a graph which is meant to display the repartition of parliamentary activity per group over the last twelve months. Surprisingly, only nine categories of activity are displayed, of which several

have slightly different labels than elsewhere on the website. For example, it is not clear whether the category ‘bills’ here refers to written or signed bills. The qualitative information about the deputies’ activities can also be accessed through the part of the website listing all files parliamentarians have been working on. Users can find lists of the most recent files, the files which have been most discussed in parliament and the files which have received the most comments by website users.

Contrary to PMWs in other countries, NosDéputés doesn’t report about voting records. In the FAQ-section on the website, Regards Citoyens mentions that they haven’t found the time to include voting records and this would require considerable work, because not all voting records are public. On 5 February 2014 the president of the National Assembly announced that there is going to be complete transparency of votes (Assemblée Nationale, 2014b). Regards Citoyens responded sceptically to this announcement by pointing out that still no information will be made available on the delegation of votes, thereby depriving citizens of important information concerning the functioning of parliament (Regards Citoyens, 2014c).

- Usage, impact

In 2010, NosDéputés had between 15,000 and 20,000 visitors per month (Petiot, 2010). Based on a 2011 survey among NosDéputés users, Ostling (2012) points out that in several respects they are not representative for the French population. Men and highly educated people are over-represented. Guillaud (2011) states that the majority of the website’s users consists of parliamentary assistants, because the information is more accessible than on the national assembly’s website.

There are 4217 registered users, of whom 911 people left a total of 2203 comments since the start of the current parliament on 20 June 2012 (Regards Citoyens, 2014). Comments are being moderated (Ostling, 2012: 290). Only now and then the moderator reports misplaced posts or irrelevant information or removes posts which are in violation of the French law. Users are only allowed to post comments to concrete activities of deputies, such as speeches in the National assembly or a signed bill, and not to the person as such. Ostling (2012) conducted a survey among NosDéputés users, which shows that deputies at times respond to user comments in a constructive way. The evidence on the actual political impact of NosDéputés user comments is rather limited though. Any interaction between users and deputies takes place outside of the website, and is as such difficult to trace. It is not clear to what extent users take into account the information on this website during election time. Some candidates have used the statistics in their campaigns or even counter-campaigns. However, according to an analysis of Le Monde, the usage of this parliamentary information has had no effect on election results (Le Monde, 2012).

NosDéputés has managed to cause some political commotion on several occasions, especially regarding the absenteeism of parliamentarians. In 2010 and 2011, NosDéputés published a study on absenteeism of deputies, which evoked a strong reaction from the president of the National assembly and which was picked up by several media. In Le Figaro Regards Citoyens stated they were strictly applying ‘the criteria as specified by the rules and the bureau of the National assembly’ (Huet, 2010). Even though Regards Citoyens doesn’t aim at making an evaluative classification of deputies, the calculations they present can be used for this purpose. Up to two times, the local newspaper Sud-Ouest presented a list of the deputies who have the best attendance record, based on data from NosDéputés. In August 2012, the French Minister for parliamentary relations Vidalies expressed concern about the degrading effects on law making of websites such as NosDéputés:

‘[…] networks which scrutinise parliamentary activity have dangerous, even pernicious effects on parliamentary work in considerable proportions […] Today, in commission, there were up to 30 deputies who intervened one after the other to make exactly the same point, just to increase their presence statistics.’ 17 (Le Lab, 2012)

Later on in Le Monde (2012) he states that it’s especially the usage by the media and social networks which worries him, and which should be dealt with in a more precautionary way. In the same article, parliamentarians from several political parties reveal to Le Monde that they are very much aware of the existence of the NosDéputés website and have noticed an increase in presence and activity of parliamentarians. Regards Citoyens, on the other hand, states they haven’t noticed significant changes in the deputies’ behaviour since the emergence of the website (Le Lab, 2012; Le Monde, 2012; Regards Citoyens, 2012). In 2014, the debate on absenteeism of French parliamentarians resulted in the abolishment of the system of delegation of votes during a public voting, meaning that deputies have to be present in order to be able to cast a vote. According to Regards Citoyens, this is a good start for more transparency, but there’s still a lot to be won.

4. Analysis regarding usefulness

4.1 Objects and infrastructure

PMWs are widely different regarding the activities on which they provide information, methods of aggregation and evaluation. An overview is given in Table 1.

17 ‘ […] les réseaux qui scrutent l’activité parlementaire, ont des effets dangereux voire pernicieux sur le travail parlementaire [et cela] dans des proportions qui sont considérables […] Aujourd'hui, en commission, on voit jusqu'à 30 députés qui interviennent les uns après les autres pour défendre exactement la même chose, uniquement pour alimenter leur compteur de présence.’

Table 1: Information provision on PMWs

Politix ‘Parliament Nosdéputés ‘NoWords’ TheyWorkForYou Watch’ Object Voting on Voting Presence in parliament Past perfor- Voting bills and Answers to and commissions mance: Appearances amend- citizens’ Interventions enactment of Expenses ments questions Signed and adopted election Interests Interests amendments pledges Written and signed bills Written and oral questions Reports written

Categorization Per party Votes: per MP Repartition of activities Per party Votes: 50-70 of performan- group, 12 in chronologi- between party groups group, 2 ‘policies’, ce data policy areas cal order selected 10 policy areas, per Questions/ themes per 6 MP answers: per selected MP, 20 themes policy areas Aggregation No Votes: No Application of the rules No Votes: per MP Answers: ratio for absenteeism to calculation by of answered records of attendance. importance of votes questions per (per policy) MP Appearances: per MP quantitative overviews Evaluation No Votes: No No Qualitative: Votes: Per MP Answers: academic Policy Agreement ranking of MPs experts, Ratio (from ‘very experts from Appearances: Per good’ to the field, MP ‘above’/’below ‘unsatis- interest average’ factory’) groups

Additional Voting, Newsletter Comments by users Forum E-mail alerts on facilities discussing, MPs or specific adding subjects argumen- tation, proposals

In terms of information supply, TheyWorkForYou is the most extensive one. The infrastructure is clear. The Policy Agreement Ratio provides some guidance for making political assessments,

which is also facilitated by the fact that the policies are indicated in a straightforward manner. However, it is not always easy for a user with a specific ‘question’ to find the right policy for an ‘answer’. In such cases, ‘finding what one is looking for’ requires much background knowledge and search abilities. In other words, the analytical approach by policy areas may not fit well with the information capabilities and search strategies of ordinary citizens. Except for very salient issues (e.g. for or against the European Union) this is a problematic aspect of websites, which aim to present performance data on the full range of political issues. The two Dutch websites represent ‘extreme’ cases regarding kind of data and infrastructure. Although both websites provided performance information, Politix only provided the raw data of votes on bills and amendments. No contextual information was provided and only a minimal infrastructure to analyse the data and draw conclusions. In contrast, NoWords focused on qualitative evaluations of the fulfilment of election pledges. In this case, there was a proliferation of sources of bias with regard to the selection of policy areas and themes, data provision and assessments. Politix followed the service-hatch approach; on the other hand, this allows for do-it-yourself activity by citizens. The qualitative approach of NoWords had also its drawbacks. In this case, a dilemma is visible between providing ‘rich’, textual information and ease of use. However, ‘report marks’ are straightforward (and in that sense useful) but misleading. In the German case, we established that the verification function of comparing parliamentarians’ answers’ to citizen questions with their voting behaviour is somewhat hampered by the fact that the votes (in contrast to the answers) are not categorized by themes. Sometimes, deciding not to publish certain information can be the right thing to do from the perspective of usefulness. This can be seen in the French case, where information about parliamentary voting is absent from the PMW. The French parliamentary voting system is rather complicated and voting records are only partially available. Publishing these records on the PMW would give a distorted image of parliamentary voting, especially if no context information were to be provided. As for the information on other parliamentary activities, there is an appropriate infrastructure to access the information through several ways. Yet, there is a problem regarding the consistency of the presentation of information. In various sections of the website, different numbers and labels of activity categories appear, making it difficult for the user to interpret the given information. Pictures and graphs make for an attractive presentation. User feedback mechanisms, however, are lacking.

4.2 Information needs

To what extent fulfil these websites the voters’ information needs? This question requires more research in view of the scholarly literature. One could hypothesize that the information offered on PMWs tends to meet the information needs of the well-educated ‘optimizers’ (Sniderman et al., 1990). In view of Zaller’s account of ‘kinds of stories’ which would call for coverage under the Burglar Alarm standard, none of the five websites provides an answer to the

straightforward question ‘what did my representative or party achieve for people like me or my fellow-constituents in this district?’ This requires a methodological approach according to cultural, geographical and socioeconomic identities.

4.3 Role of information intermediaries

With regard to the PMOs we see different patterns of involvement. In the TheyWorkForYou case, the raw data of votes are aggregated on ThePublicWhip. The algorithm and the assessment of votes according to ‘importance’ are design choices and therefore biased. The website is transparent about the algorithm and the calculation within each policy but not about the decisions about the importance of individual votes. On the other hand, users can participate in the maintenance of policies. The two Dutch websites exhibit very different patterns of involvement. The Politix editors had almost no role in the gathering, aggregation and evaluation of the data (except the classification in policy areas), whereas the NoWords editors, and by their design decisions also the external evaluators and the political parties, were heavily involved in these activities. The service hatch approach of Politix presumes that other information intermediaries, notably journalists use the material, process it in certain ways and present their results to the public. This occurred in a few cases. However, also in the NoWords project, in which a PMO and a broadcasting association cooperated, the project managers were disappointed by the fact that journalists hardly used the material on the website for comments and further research. The German case provides another and potentially promising model, because of the partnerships with prominent German online media. As for the French case, Regards Citoyens explicitly refrains from interpreting the data they present or making evaluations. They want to let this up to the website users.

5. Assessment of democratic value

What is the empirical evidence for the democratic value of PMWs? The two Dutch cases were too limited in usage and impact to have any discernible effects on the voters’ information base. NoWords was a very interesting project in its approach and design. One can only speculate about the effect of the provided information about the enactment of election promises if the website would have had more media resonance. The average report mark of 5.4 (calculated provisionally by the project manager) is not that different from Thomson’s finding that ‘at least some policy action was taken on 61 percent of the 574 [investigated] pledges made by parties that subsequently entered Dutch coalition governments’ (Thomson, 1999: 223)). He concludes that ‘it cannot be argued that parties do not fulfil their election pledges’ (p.224). This would imply that if appropriate contextual information is provided, the monitoring of ‘promissory representation’ (Mansbridge, 2003) can produce credible performance information with some

democratic value. Furthermore, the media activities of the broadcasting association, and in particular the quite successful ‘job evaluation interviews’ with politicians were interesting instances of the forum function of deliberative democracy (see figure 2), although no connection was made with the information on the website. Politix was explicitly aimed at improving public discussions about politics but it had no strategy for pursuing this deliberative aim. The two Dutch cases rather demonstrate that the introduction of monitoring practices within a political system which is institutionally not attuned to this, runs up against many obstacles.

The British case shows some evidence on accountability effects. In Escher’s survey, a substantial proportion of the site users indicated that the website had improved their knowledge about their representative, and also improved their opinion. This result can be taken as an indication that the aim to enable citizens to pass a fair judgment of representatives, with the supposed indirect effect of making MPs feel accountable, is attainable. A drawback has been revealed of the quantitative performance indicators used on the website. They may have perverse effects on the quality of parliamentary work.

Apart from questions answered, the German website is weaker in accountability on performance but stronger in how it enhances the connection between parliamentarians and their constituency. Moreover, Parliament Watch has been active for transparency in party financing and perquisites. Some successful ‘burglar alarms’ concerning ethical conduct can be noted. The website is also strong in its media partnerships. These are important resources for its role in democracy.

According to one of the founders of NosDéputés ‘France is behind’ regarding access to information (Petiot, 2010). This is certainly the case when it comes to voting records. Contrary to the other PMWs no voting records are published, because of difficulties in acquiring the necessary information. Recently, the National assembly has made the first steps into making the voting more transparent. The PMW has played a role in the accountability for deputies’ absence in parliament. At the same time, just as in the British case, there’s some evidence of strategic behaviour from parliamentarians to influence the website’s statistics. Except as evaluators in the NoWords panel, we did not come across any evidence of involvement of interest groups in parliamentary monitoring, in contrast to their very strong involvement in the United States.

6. Concluding remarks

Although the evidence is somewhat patchy, we conclude that PMWs do have democratic value. They have positive effects on different elements of accountability and expose weaknesses in

the functioning of parliamentarians with regard to integrity and conflicts of interests. In order to enhance these effects, more encompassing strategies are required in terms of aims, objects, infrastructure and partnerships. We found some important barriers regarding usefulness. The existing scholarly knowledge about how voters gather and process information should be better taken into account in the approach to information provision on PMWs. The information needs and information seeking strategies of ordinary users have to be taken more into account. Particularly, innovative information provision strategies are needed to attract less educated voters. Much can still be done to improve the infrastructure in which the information is embedded and to tailor additional facilities to the interests and capabilities of different user categories. Examples are visualization techniques and facilities for serious gaming. We conclude that the professionalization of PMOs deserves attention. Universities could fulfil a role in this respect.

The role of PMWs and the media as information intermediaries is crucial. A fundamental dilemma is that the more extensive are their efforts to improve usefulness, the more biases their information provision will exhibit. Transparency about design choices and pluralism of information intermediaries are ways for coping with this dilemma. ‘Do-it-yourself citizenship’ can promote this pluralism if groups of citizens process parliamentary data in different ways. The drive to monitor parliamentarians entails all kinds of unintentional side-effects. Quantitative data and statistics about parliamentary activities can induce strategic behaviour of parliamentarians. In view of the exploratory character of our paper, several themes deserve further investigation. In addition to the themes indicated above, we suggest further research into the value of parliamentary monitoring for the quality of parliamentary work. In this paper, we only discussed the perverse side effects, but what is the added value of PMWs for parliamentarians themselves? And how do they perceive and evaluate the democratic value of parliamentary monitoring?

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